Author's Note: I found this story in my binder from about 10 years ago, before I learned many of the writing "rules" of today's romance novel - one of them being not switching points of view within a chapter. For this story, it seems to work - adding character and reader depth without being confusing to the reader. I'm curious on reader's feedback. I'll post a few chapters to see what people think. Thanks!
Early Fall 1864, England
He rode in the carriage, swaying with the rocking on the bumpy country road. The ocean scenery in the dawn of the early morning was one that he'd consider breathtaking- under different circumstances. Wild, rugged hills and valley outlined against the belly of the crashing waves that swallowed and birthed rocks far older than he. Today, he felt as ancient as those monstrous boulders in the shallow waters of the sea. Today, he felt as isolated as those boulders so close to the peace of land but forever lost to the raping waters. He stared out the window and grew lost in the memories...
She had never seen the sea. How proud and excited be the one to introduce her to the mystical beauty. "Oh, Marcus, it is so magnificent!" she cried and bounced in his lap in the saddle.
He laughed without care, her pleasure warming his heart. "My angel, the best is yet to come." He steered the horse off the path and into the sand.
Her big blue eyes turned up to him with pure joy. "Are we going in?"
Smiling down at the delicate beauty in his arms, he replied, "We'll wade in the waters. Don't go too far - I don't want the waves sweeping you away, sweetheart." He swung down and turned to her with his arms up to catch her.
She giggled and clapped her hands, as giddy as a child. "Hurry, take me in!" She slid off the steed and into his arms.
"Easy, Anna. We have all day." He chuckled and caught her.
Her eyes riveted on the sea. "Yes, but will a day be long enough? Oh, I'm so excited!"
It seemed to take her a moment to realize that he still held her against the horse. She looked up at him in question as he gazed down at her. "You're so beautiful," he whispered.
She blushed as delicately as the rest of her was. "Husband, if we were caught by anyone like this, we would be scandalized and shunned for years." But she raised to her toes and brushed a tender kiss over his lips all the same.
He snorted at the memory. Scandalized. How his Anna would faint if she could see him now. She probably twisted in her grave knowing he was about to offer for a stranger so scandalized and shunned that the entire county called the woman an outcast. He pulled his top hat farther down on his brow and huddled into the neck of his overcoat. The chill of the sea air in the Fall... He hated the sea.
She awoke before the sun after a fitful night's sleep. There was no point in trying to rest, for her nerves were all a twitter awaiting for the clock to strike ten. She glanced at it for the thousandth time. Half past nine. A half hour to go until her life was doomed.
Grabbing her hairbrush, she stood before the mirror in her late father's cottage. One glance in the mirror said that any man would run screaming at the sight of a woman with such dark shadows under her eyes and auburn locks so wild. Her dress had worn to threads at the elbows and waistline. "You're about to meet your husband, and you look like a pauper," she said to the reflection. The dress was years out of fashion and strained to contain her. "But then, you are a pauper, aren't you?" The last of Papa's money had been spent burying him not even a fortnight ago. Not that she missed him - his last days had been spent agonizing over her "lost soul bound for Hell." His life had been spent in the bottle to escape how much she reminded him of her long-dead mother.
She set the brush to her hair and then thought better of it. Slowing setting it on the counter, she eyed herself. "Papa may've gotten an old friend to promise to wed you, but he'll have second thoughts after one look at you." She smiled. "No Marquess would take you for his wife." She gave her mangled hair a good tease and set out to the kitchen with a lighter step in her foot than in the past year.